Activation of new aaa units - Air Defense Artillery

19-f.S 1\1ANAGING MEN 39
which their minds cannot comprehend. Once you give
him a joh that he can handle, let him stay there if at all
possible-for his limited number of brain cells make it difficult
for him to learn new things each day.
NEUROSES (NERVOUSNESS)
;\lost psychiatric cases In the army will fall in the group
called "neuroses." You will see manv neurotic cases in
training camps and on the battlefield. In days gone by,
many soldiers suffering from nervousness \\'ere called
"gold-bricks" and through mistreatment the army lost the
use of many men who might otherwise have been com'erted
into valuable soldiers.
A neurotic man is not insane. Neuroses are conditions
which most persons call nervousness although in the extreme
forms these men appear to suffer from a physical illness
or even a mental disease. Normal people may develop
nervousness, and soldiers are particularly prone to nervous
reactions when thev first enter the militarv service and
when they are on the battle front. Nevertheless, by proper
understanding of these nervous states, the platoon sergeant
can do much to prevent and cure them.
It is interesting to note that the same conditions which
will bring about neuroses among soldiers will also increase
in the military unit the AWOL rate, the number of courtmartials,
the 'venereal disease rate, and the sick call rate.
The reverse is also true, when the causes of neuroses are
removedin an army camp the!e will simultaneously be a decrease
in AWOLs, sick call rate, etc.
The Causes.
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There are two sets of causes of nervous reactions: Personality
causes and precipitating causes.
Personality causes have their bases in the nervous personality
which in turn is usually the result of a poor childhood
environment. The important thing about environment
is not the financial background but the kind of parents
one has, the nature of the childhood training, the development
of habits of self-reliance, decencv, and belief in
certain social standards. Children learn p~imarily by example,
and it is easv to understand how the child becomes
irritable, complaini~g, and emotional \\'hen a father comes
home tired, irritable, complaining, and "takes it out" on his
wife and children. It is easv to understand how the child,
who imitates like a monke)7,becomes cross, nagging, unhappy
and fearful when the mother is always cross, nagging,
unhappy and crying. When families are very poor,
tempers are often short and emotional instabilitv more
common, but it is the instabilitv in the home, not the lack
of money, that makes men unstable. There are manv families
thro~ghout this 'world \vhich have little food ari'd poor
homes, but do have a nice kind of family life and rear
children \'I.'hoare self-reliant, decent, kind a'nd determined.
There is much more to the development of personality
than these home factors-but it is important to recognize
the fact that most men of 18 who enter the army haye not
been awav from home, and that what the\' think and feel.
the \Yaythey react to life, the emotions a~d the prejudice~
they carry, their self-reliance or lack of it-all these are the
resultnot of their own choosinv but of the em'ironment in
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which they were brought up. Men begin to change their
environment and their feelings when they begin to thinkand
most men do not really begin to think for themselves
till after the age of 16-or 18.
For this reason it is difficult to "blame" I8-year-old soldiers
who have poor personalities, since their personalities
have been made for them, in most cases, by their parents
and their environment. Their personalities can be changed
but unfortunately it is usually the school of hard experience
that does the changing. In a civilian army, we do not have
the time to remold personalities, for good fighting men are
needed-and quickly.
Physical Signs of Neuroses
Many of the signs of nervousness are not recognized by
the average man. Often symptoms \,,:hich seem to be definitely
physical in character have their basis in a neurosis,
and many other symptoms which seem to be the result of.
malingering (gold-bricking) stem from a high degree of
emotional instability. To further complicate the picture,
there are real physical diseases which result from nervousness,
such as high blood pressure, headaches, vomiting,
diarrhea, pains over the heart, etc. Neurotic symptoms may
be physical or "mental" in character, arid hm'e to be studied
separately.
Let us suppose you were in bivouac "over there" and
awakened in the middle of the night to see an armed soldier
standing at the edge of the woods. If in the dim night
light the un'iform which the soldier wore seemed to you to
be that of thb enemy, your heart would begin to beat fast.
The usual explanation given for the rapid beating of your
heart would be that you were excited-but just exactly what
was the physical connection between your heart and a man
standing some 20-30 yards from you? If you thought that
man had an American uniform, vour heart would not have
increased its beat..
The eye saw the soldier. Impulses are sent from the eye
to the brain. It is at the brain level that something happens
'''-7hichdetermines whether the heart beats fast or not. If the
brain INTERPRETS the stimulus coming from the eye as
something which is dangerous to the man, then the brain
becomes "excited." In medical discussions, we never speak
of the brain becoming excited-but for practical purposes
the brain acts as if it had suddenlv been electrified. But it
is most important to keep in miu'd always, that it \'\.'asn't
just the sight of a soldier that caused the excitement, but
the interpretation in the brain, which produced an emotional
response. This same principle is true in nearly
everything else which creates fear or emotion in men-it
is not what one sees, or hears, or feels that upsets one-it is
the attitude the brain takes to\vards that stimulus which
creates the excitement. Some men haye developed "emotional
habits': so that almost any unusual sight or sound
will be interpreted as dangerous and thus create an excited
brain. filen who are neurotic tend to have a chronic "emotional
attitude," and the cure of their neurotic condition
often lies in removing this "habit."
The brain is connected through nen'es with every single
part of the body. The exact method of connection is not
too clearly understood even medically, but \\-hen the brain
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